About Our Research: 2005 Prize Winners

Tyler E. Jacks

Tyler E. Jacks, PhD, is the David H. Koch Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director of the MIT Center for Cancer Research, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. His work creating better, more accurate models of human cancers in mice has advanced our understanding of the pathogenesis of disease. Much of his research has focused on the oncogene K-Ras, which is implicated in many different types of cancer. He also has studied mutations of p53 and other tumor suppressor genes. Dr. Jacks received his PhD degree in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Scott W. Lowe

Scott W. Lowe, PhD, is a Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Deputy Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center, and an HHMI investigator. He studies how genes influence the response to chemotherapy, by exploring the molecular and genetic machinery of apoptosis (programmed cell death) and cellular senescence (in which cells irreversibly stop proliferating but remain alive). These normal cellular processes are disrupted in cancer cells, which accounts for how tumors are able to grow and spread. Much of his work has focused on the tumor suppressor gene p53, which is mutated in about half of all cancers. Dr. Lowe received his PhD degree in biology from MIT and completed a postdoctoral fellowship there. (Note: In October 2011, Dr. Lowe joined Memorial Sloan Kettering as the Director of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center.)

Jeff Wrana

Jeff Wrana, PhD, is a Professor of Medical Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Toronto and a Senior Investigator in the Program in Molecular Biology and Cancer in the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, part of Mount Sinai Hospital. He is also an HHMI International Scholar. He is being recognized for his work analyzing how cell-cell communication impacts tumor development. His work has focused on the Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-) family of cell signaling proteins that regulate cell growth and function. TGF- is important to study from a cancer perspective because it can both block and promote cancer growth. Dr. Wrana received his PhD degree in biochemistry from the University of Toronto and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.